We've raised $6m to build a community-owned ecommerce ecosystem.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve raised $6 million in seed funding, led by Rainfall Ventures, alongside Felix Capital, Long Journey Ventures, Afore Ventures, and Commerce Ventures, along with a number of strategic angels. We’re grateful for the support from all of our investors and advisors in helping us build the Rally product and mission.

In the first two posts of this series, we covered the platform problem in ecommerce, and how it impacts merchants and app developers. 

In this final post, we’ll provide more detail on the checkout product we’re building, and our larger mission.

The Rise of Headless Ecommerce

Traditionally, ecommerce platforms have covered all three essential layers of the ecommerce stack. First, the frontend storefront with which shoppers interact. Second, the backend, which includes typical functions like product catalog, order and customer management, as well as connection to third-party apps. And third, the checkout, which acts as a transaction layer that allows shoppers to make payment for their purchases.

As merchants grow in sophistication and competition intensifies, there’s an increasing demand for a more specialized approach. 

This is where headless ecommerce comes in. The headless movement is unbundling traditional, monolithic platforms. Building headless gives merchants the ability to pick and choose the services that make the most sense for their business.

There’s a headless alliance forming which includes frontend solutions like Builder.io, Next.js, and others, and backend solutions like Swell, Saleor, and other incredible companies in the space. 

What’s missing is a checkout to unify them all.

The Rally Checkout

The Rally checkout is built for the needs of merchants today, and into the future. This includes features such as:

• Optimized one-click checkout: Fast, reliable, mobile-first checkout experience
• ‍Rally Pay: A secure network of recognized shoppers so your customers never enter their payment info into form fields again, on any checkout in the Rally network
• New revenue channels: Revenue enhancing features at the point of checkout, such as post-purchase offers
• Freedom of choice: Built for traditional and headless platforms to ensure merchants can choose the backend, frontend, and apps that are right for their business
• Web3 enabled: Bring the power of web3 payments and products to merchants, from accepting crypto to selling NFTs
  

Merchants and shoppers deserve an easy, flexible checkout experience, regardless of which platform a store is built on.

The Rally Ecosystem

Building a better checkout is important, but not the whole story. Rally isn’t successful if we end up building the same platform-centric ecosystem with a different checkout. If we want to shift the balance of power away from platforms and toward merchants and app developers, we have to build a different way.

In other words: We don’t want to arm the rebels, only to one day find ourselves as the empire.

Rally’s mission is to build a community-owned commerce ecosystem that is governed by merchants, rewards value creation, and aligns the incentives of participants for the long-term.

This ecosystem will be enabled by blockchain technology and fueled by the Rally token.

We believe in the following: 

• A community-owned ecosystem. A true solution to the platform problem is a system that is owned and governed by its participants. Rally token holders should have governance with genuine input and control over the direction of the product, the token, and the ecosystem. When you own Rally tokens, you own the same thing that the team owns, that the investors own. You have a say about the future of the project.
• ‍Rewarding value creation. Merchants should be rewarded for processing revenue through the checkout. With Rally, merchants will earn tokens as they process revenue. Token ownership and staking come with tangible benefits like reduced pricing, early access to new features, and a lot more.
• ‍Alignment for the very long term. Powered by promises made in smart contracts and a transparent approach, the Rally product and organization will grow and benefit the community it operates in.

‍Join Us
An ecommerce ecosystem is a cooperative effort between merchants, app developers, and the service providers who help them succeed. For too long, centralized ecommerce platforms have held too much power and extracted too much value.

We’re building an alternative and are looking for others who share our vision for a decentralized future for commerce.

If you’re a merchant and are interested in using our checkout, apply for Early Access.

If you’re an app developer or partner and want to work together, get in touch.

And if you want to join us on the journey, sign up for our newsletter.